Shamu Up-Close Experience: Behind-the-Scenes Killer Whale Training Session at SeaWorld Orlando

It is a privilege for all of us to connect with, care for, and celebrate SeaWorld's killer whales. For nearly 50 years we have been honored to raise public awareness about these animals and how we are all connected to our one ocean. We hope that over the next few minutes we can share with you even more about SeaWorld's killer whales and what they represent as the ocean's ambassadors. Now no one understands the power of this wondrous connection between people and killer whales as well as our SeaWorld trainers. And here's Kayla to tell us more. Thank you so much Amy. Hi everyone! We're so glad to see you guys here today. Now the first question you might have is why are we not sitting in that huge stadium right over there? Good question. In order to maintain the health and well-being of our animals we periodically perform routine maintenance in different areas of the park. And that's to make sure that everything is absolutely at its best. So while we're busy sprucing things up over there in the stadium we are so proud to have you, our guests, visiting us here in our backstage area for a very special and unique perspective of our Shamu family. It's a privilege to work alongside of our killer whales. As trainers we're part of a multifaceted SeaWorld team that's responsible for the care, health, and well-being of these amazing animals. Now the really cool part about you guys getting to be in our backstage area is that we are going to introduce these animals to you as individuals and you're also going to get to learn about them as a species and how we take care of them each and every day. So we're going to start off by introducing Nalani. Nalani is a 7-year-old juvenile female and she's going to do a jump for you in the middle of the pool if you would like to point your cameras towards the center. She's going to be jumping right up in front of you guys here. I'll try to point her out for you. She's going to be right over here everyone if you want to take a picture of her. There's Nalani. Nalani is 7 years old. She was born here at SeaWorld Orlando. She's working alongside Jodi today who's on stage. She's also joined by her little brother Makaio. Makaio is 3 years old, was also born here, and he's actually our youngest member of our Shambu family. He's going to hopefully jump right in front of Tanner here with his long white pole. We'll explain what that pole is in just a couple minutes. So here's Makaio our 3-year-old coming up to touch that ball or bowing out of it, either one. And of course we also have their mom as well. Katina is the oldest member of our Shambu family. She's working alongside Valerie today across the way. Katina is 38 years old, and she's actually the matriarch of our pod here at SeaWorld Orlando. In killer whale society, it's actually the females who rule the pool. So a matriarch means that she is the alpha. She's the dominant one over all the other killer whales. A lot of people ask us how is it you train these behaviors that you guys are seeing during an interaction like this. This is called a learning session, so you're going to see how we train new behaviors. The way that we train new behaviors is by first off, starting with our palm of our hand. And when an animal is young, the first thing that they'll learn to do is touch their nose or rostrum with the palm of our hand. Then we can raise our hand up higher and higher, and we can spin it around, but they're always following our hand, and our hands are used to guide them. Now, obviously, I'm only so tall, my arms are only so long, so I can't reach all the way out into the middle of the pool. So instead, we have these instruments or tools that we use called target poles. Tanner's holding one right here. You can see him holding it up for you. This long white pole is an extension of our arm, and the white ball or buoy at the end represents the palm of our hand. So sometimes you'll see us tap the surface of the water with that ball or buoy, just asking an animal to try to come over and try to touch that buoy or touch that ball. That's kind of the stages of training. We train on something called positive reinforcement, which means that every time an animal does something really well, we'll reward them in different ways. There's Imani again jumping. And if you guys were listening, you heard her trainer on stage blow the whistle that we wear around our neck. That's another tool that helps us with training. It's our way of saying, good boy or good girl. Killer whales don't have the exact same kind of hearing that you and I do, so instead of saying the words good boy or good girl, we use these whistles, like I said, which say basically the same thing to the animal. We also communicate using our hands as well. If you watch the trainers on stage, they'll use their hands to give hand signals to the animal. Katina, who's 38 years old, she's still learning to give hand signals all the time, just like you and I will always be learning throughout our entire lifetime. It's the same thing with the killer whales, because she's still learning as well. But as she gets older, she's going to learn more and more behaviors and more and more hand signals. And some of the animals can learn hundreds of different hand signals and different behaviors to do. Like that big killer whale-sized belly flop from Miss Katina. And I like that pose over there for you guys on the far left-hand side. Sounds like she's even talking for you. Those vocalizations that killer whales make come from the top of their head, come from their blowhole. Killer whales don't have any vocal cords at all, so while I'm talking to you, I'm vibrating the vocal cords in my throat. That's how I'm creating all the noises that are coming out of my mouth. But killer whales don't have vocal cords, so you use their blowhole instead. In fact, it's kind of like when you were little, you used to blow up a balloon and stretch the neck of the balloon out, create a high-pitched whistling or squealing sound. It's the exact same thing that the killer whales do with their blowhole. They're just experts at being able to manipulate the muscles on the top of their head so that they're creating certain sounds. Each animal's voice, if you will, is different. In fact, a lot of the trainers, when we close our eyes and you ask an animal to do a vocal or create a noise, a lot of times we'll know which animal is making that noise just based on the voice that we're using to hear it come from that animal. They also have different physical markings as well. Down here, there's Nalani. She's a really great example. If you can see her right-hand side, if you're standing over there, her white eye patch or oval behind her eye, she has three black eyelashes in her right-hand side on that white oval. Now, they don't have eyelashes like you and I do. It's just a marking. There are three little streaks that look like eyelashes. That's what we call them. But it's one of the ways that we can tell Nalani apart from all of the other animals. Katina has markings too. She actually has two white dots or spots about the size of quarters on her chin. That's one of the ways you can tell her apart from the other members of our family or ponds. And Makaio, our youngest, is still like a black and creamy color. Cows are actually born like a dark, dark brown and yellow color, and then they get that striking black and white coloration as they age. So Makaio being a juvenile at three years old, he still has a little bit of that creamy color instead of the white, like his sister Nalani or his mom Katina over there. Maybe like you're seeing with Jodi and Nalani, you can see Jodi showing off a little bit of dance moves and Nalani is copying her. Those mimic behaviors are a very natural way for killer whales to learn. In fact, we were just talking about Makaio being younger and kind of watching more experienced animals. That's actually one of the ways that killer whales learn is by observing another animal, and then through that experience they start to try to copy. The first several years of a killer whale's life is all about a big beam of copycat. They'll see an older animal or a more experienced animal doing something, and they'll try to copy that same behavior. So sometimes you'll see a younger animal jump alongside the mom or even an older sibling, like Nalani here. The tongue you just saw Nalani shaking around, there's lots of different things that we've learned from our breeding program here at SeaWorld, which they have the most successful breeding program in the entire world for killer whales, with almost 30 killer whales born between all three SeaWorld parks. Nalani's going to jump up again in front of you guys down here on the right-hand side. The tongue is really interesting, and one of the things that we've learned here at SeaWorld about a killer whale's tongue is that they all have the ability to roll their tongues. With humans, it's a genetic trait. Some of us can, some of us can't, but all killer whales are able to do that, and the reason being is so that they can use it like a straw when they're nursing from their mom. There's Katina sliding up for you, and Nalani's up there too. You can see the size difference between an adult female Katina and a juvenile with Nalani. Another thing that we've learned here at SeaWorld is about growth rates of killer whales, which is definitely something that we would not have been able to learn, especially in their natural environment. In fact, you can see our killer whale-sized scale right here in this pool. If you take a look across the way, that big silver platform that's toward the left-hand side of the trainers, that is a killer whale-sized scale, and that's used to help us weigh the animals pretty routinely, generally once a week. Now we hope you guys enjoyed this opportunity to learn more about killer whales. Remember that killer whales learn through observation, experience, and cooperation, and so when others see you and me taking care of the environment, like picking up trash on the beach, they are inspired to start making positive choices too. Through Shamu, we learned that each of us, by those choices, has the opportunity to create a positive impact on our ocean and on our planet. If we all join together in cooperation, we can work wonders, and the beauty of our ocean will continue to thrive. Here for SeaWorld's family of hearts, soon we will be celebrating our 50th anniversary. The work being done here at Chamber Stadium is just a part of what promises to be the most exciting time in SeaWorld's history. We hope you can join us again soon for the next amazing chapter in the SeaWorld story. At Chamber up close, on behalf of my colleagues this afternoon, I wish you a whale of a day right here at SeaWorld. Bye everybody! We invite you to join us now at Killer Whale Underwater Viewing for a different and truly incredible perspective. There you'll learn even more about killer whales and have the opportunity to view them below the water. To access Killer Whale Underwater Viewing, just exit this area to the left and join the queue that forms to the right. Thank you and have a whale of a day here at SeaWorld!